Carbon County's retirement fund is out-performing the annual assumptions, officials report.

During the monthly meeting of the county retirement board, which followed Thursday's commissioners' meeting, Robert Crampsie, county controller and secretary of the retirement board, announced that at the end of the second quarter on June 30, the portfolio balance for the fund was $64,791,596, a $855,918 decrease since May, but a $3,551,941 increase since the beginning of the year.Crampsie said the end of the quarter turned out to be very good, despite a volatile market.To date, the county's rate of return is 5.8 percent, which is better than the actuarial assumption to date."Our actuarial assumption for the year is 7.5 percent," Crampsie said. "Half way through the year we would have to be at 3.75 to be hitting that assumption. As you can see we are ahead of the assumption so performance wise, so far we're doing pretty well, but we all know how volatile this market has been and probably will continue to be."The Carbon County retirement fund has been on a roller coaster over the last few years, posting a significant loss after a very volatile stock market sent it crashing down by the end of 2008.By the end of that year, the fund's balance was $47,684,152, which represented a negative 24-percent return for the year.In the first two months of 2009, the fund dropped even further, but beginning in March 2009, the county posted its first positive month in the stock market.Since then, the fund had performed well, recovering all of the money that was lost during the recession two years ago; and hitting its all-time high of $66.78 million on April 30.